Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-04-23
MILLIONS In OIL.
STORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF
THE RICH BRADFORD FIELDS.
The Country Boy Who Spent a For
tune in Sinking Wells That Were
Not Quite Deep Enough-A
Long Search Rewarded.

| LUX oChrCh Asc"aEucu.
! Job Moses was country boy, born
somewhere up about Leroy, N. Y, who
drifted into Rochester, while still in his
teens, to make his fortune. In 1862 he
had made t, and big one, out of pat
ent pill that he or some one else had in
vented. About that time Oil Creek was
in its glory, and the newspapers teemed
with accounts of the fortunes to be made
out of oil. The stories fired the imagina
ton of the Rochester pill man, and he
determined to try his hand at the new
source of wealth.
Up in the northern part of Mexican
county, this State, and the southern part
of Cattaraugus county, New York, lies
valley which was then and is yet one of
the widest and most forsaken sections of
country to be found east Of the Missis-
sippi. Through this valley, then given
up to numbering, Charles Minot, who
used to conduct the Erie Road sometimes
for profit, but mostly for pleasure and
glory, had for some reason built a branch
road which ran through Bradford-which
| then boosted three houses, a blacksmith
shop, school-house and tavern-and
terminated at the little lumber camp OF
| Gilesville.
job Moses looked over the field, studied
the maps, and finally made up his mind
that the valley through which Minot's
| little railroad ran was underlaid with one
vast sea of oil. As time passed on he be-
came as certain as fate that his conclu
sions were right. One day he showed up
| in Bradford leased some thousands of
acres, and soon had well under way.
| The simple minded natives, who had
thought him eccentric from the first, set
him down as o lunatic when he told them
that the earnings of the railroad which
ran past their door would soon be in
creased twenty-fold, and to his opinion
they chung for many long year.
For twelve years Job Moses, with
| logged resolution, sunk hole after hole
| in his leases, but with no show of oil.
Then he woke up one morning to find
that the thousands he had made out of
| pills in Rochester had vanished in the
holes he had been punching in the woods
and fields about Bradford, and that he
was poor man. Disappointed, but not
discouraged, he went to New York, and
| with an eloquence born of earnestness
| he succeeded in obtaining from the capt.
| talists who gave him a hearing money
| with which to continue his search. This was
in 1876 Once back on his field of ope-
rations new idea struck him. Up to
that time he had drilled all of his wells
only nine hundred feet deep, the horizon
at which oil was found along the creek
Perhaps there might be producing sand
still further down. He sunk one of his
+u,n brn raJ faot Ioo,>or oDA xrao
rewarded with q fifty-barrel producer
Another and another told the same or
better story. Job Moses had at last
found the oil field for which he had so
long been searching. Every well he sunk
gave him rich returns. The news of his
success spread abroad, and the tide Of oil
dom turned slowly toward Bradford. A
year later it had turned to q flood, and
the fact was freely admitted that no such
field had ever been struck before. Lands
which two years before had been almost
worthless, sold for more than a Princes
ransom. But Moses had it all under lease,
| and was able to make his own terms. His
thirteen years of waiting netted him mill
IONS He lives in New York now, en-
joys life and always has spare fifty to
loan to any of the boys who happen to get
broke in the metropolis. Job Moses was
not the only man who grew rich in the
Bradford field. The Standard Oil Com
pany made, in storage and pipeage rates,
the modest sum of $25, 900, 900, and still
exacts lordly income. John McKeown
got his first start at Bradford. By accident
he picked up good lease, sold half of it,
and with the proceeds developed the other
half. He made fortune, and has been put
ting down wells and striking it rich ever
since. To-day he has millions in Gov
eminent bonds, owns n big cattle ranch
in Colorado and hundreds of wells in
this State, and is the largest single oil
producer in the world. George V. Fore
man went to Bradford with a very lean
pocket-book, made $500, 600 in five years,
much and sold out his interests there fora as
more to the Union Oil Company. Lewis
Emery, junior, was a contractor when
he concluded to make Bradford his home.
He was young, but one of the best posted
among the millonaires. and delights in
pointing out the wells on which he
worked less than ten years ago.
DR.. Roberts made half million out of
his torpedo and won the hatred of the oil
men at the same time. He has since
squandcred portion of his wealth in I'M
successful attempts to get into Congress.
S. G. Bayne, Scotchman, made for
tune by selling boilers for drilling wells.
Henry Jarecki, who used to be in the re-
tail jewelry trade at Erie, made bigger
one in the same way. Ravord & Seig-
fang, two young machinists, went to
Bradford poor, and by hard work, man
aged to start small tool shop. They
are worth more now, and their machinery
goes all over the oil country. Alexander
Watson, when Bradford was young, built
derricks for livelihood. Now he is
wholesale lumber dealer, and has his
agents in every oil town. T. H. Harris
made fortune at Bradford, lost it, and